The key to good and efficient writing lies in the intelligent organization of ideas and notes.

"If you want to learn something for the long run, you have to write it down, If you want to really understand something, you have to translate it into your own words."

After spending years commenting in the margins of text and collecting notes by topic, Luhmann realized his system wasn’t leading anywhere.

he realized they all have one fundamental flaw: once written down, ideas stay passive; they do not mingle with each other. The sum of all notes does not amount to something greater.

his slip-box was much more than just a collection of notes. It became an ever-growing external memory for developing thoughts, keeping biases in check, streamlining the writing process, and for sparking new ideas.

How you connect an idea is as important as the idea itself. Therefore a note then should be relevant to whatever is important to you, not just related to whatever you’re reading.

“Without understanding information within its context, it is also impossible to go beyond it, to reframe it and to think about what it could mean for another question.”

When you highlight or underline the text, you lose the context from which it was found. The highlight may seem important when you took it, but when viewed on its own, its importance or relevance may become lost.

let order emerge bottom-up by making connections between your notes and observe the differences between them. Creating a note should be decided by whether or not it adds value to your network by connecting to existing ideas or having the potential to connect to future ones.

“In the old system, the question is: Under which topic do I store this note? In the new system, the question is: In which context will I want to stumble upon it again?”